Hibernation is a time when animals ‘sleep’ through cold weather.

This sleep is
HOME not like human sleep where loud noises can wake you up. With true hibernation,
the animal can be moved around or touched and not know it. [Don’t you do this,
HIBERNATION though. Some animals only go into a torpor or temporary sleep time and can wake
up quickly. Like BEARS.] We are going to use the word 'sleep' sometimes but
TORPOR hibernation is different from regular sleep. With normal sleep, the animal moves a
little, has an active brain, and can wake up very quickly. With true hibernation, the
ESTIVATION animal appears dead. There is no movement and it takes a long time for it to wake
up enough to even walk around.
DIAPAUSE We will show you how animals get ready to sleep the winter away, what it is like,
and who does it.
GLOSSARY GETTING READY: During the fall, hibernating animals eat more food than
usual. Their bodies will live off their body fat as they ‘sleep’ through winter. The
FUN PAGE animal will use up the body fat it stores and not lose any muscle. This causes the
animal to come out of hibernation thinner but still as strong as it was in the fall.
The animals get their winter nests, dens and burrows ready. Different kinds of
SITE MAP animals hibernate in different kinds of safe spots. When they go into hibernation
and their bodies slow down, enemies can get them easier. They try to pick the
SURVEY safest place to spend the winter away from these enemies.
WHAT IT IS AND WHO DOES IT: Hibernation is the way that animals adapt to
THE TEAM the climate and land around them. Animals must be able to live through extreme
cold…. or die. Animals hibernate—or deep sleep—to escape that cold. They also
SOURCES do this because it is really hard to find food during the winter.
We don’t think about body energy too often. Our bodies are like machines that
EMAIL US need power to work right. Food gives animals the energy they need to walk, run,
hunt for food, and lots of other things. Hibernating animals store food as body fat
during the end of summer and during fall. This body fat runs their bodies all
winter. This would be hard to do if they stayed awake, moved around a lot, or ran
around because those things would use up the body fat before winter was over. A
hibernating animal’s body saves energy by doing a couple of cool things.
When an animal begins to hibernate, its body temperature drops very low so that
it almost matches the temperature outside. Your temperature is normally about
98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. If you were a hibernator and it was 30 degrees outside,
your body temperature would drop from 98.6 down to about 30-40 degrees.
THAT’S cold!
The animal’s heartbeat and breathing slow down, too. This is when that stored
fat that the animal packed on in the fall comes in handy. This stored fat lasts
longer because their bodies are slowed down so much that they don’t need much
energy. This is how the animal makes it through the whole winter on the fat it has
stored in its body. This is why it's important for animals to get enough food stored
in the fall. If there is a shortage of food at that time, the animal might not live until
spring when it can find its food again.
Some of these hibernators also store food in their caves and burrows. The ones
that do this do not sleep straight through the winter. They wake up once in awhile,
walk around a little, and eat before they go back to sleep. Some warm-blooded
hibernators are:

Badgers Hedgehogs
Bats Nighthawks
Chipmunks Poor-Wills
Dormouse Prairie Dogs
Fat-tailed lemurs Raccoon
Ground squirrels Skunks
Hamsters Swifts
Marmots, Groundhogs, And bears [depending on
Woodchucks who you talk to]

Cold-blooded hibernators begin hibernation when the cold weather causes their
body temperatures to drop. Cold-blooded animals do not have a body temperature
like humans do. Our temperature stays about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit all the
time. Cold-blooded animal temperatures stay the same as the air temperature
around them. If it is 50 degrees outside, the lizard is around 50 degrees. If it is
110 outside, then they are about 110, too. Since we already said that hibernators
adapt to their environments, you can see why these animals would try to escape
extreme cold AND heat by hibernating. Hibernation is sleeping through cold and
estivation is sleeping through heat. Cold-blooded hibernators will wake up when
the air outside warms or cools enough for them to be comfortable. Some cold-
blooded hibernators are:

Bees
 Earthworms
Frogs and toads
Lizards
Mud Turtles
Snails
Snakes

Hibernation links
Getting Ready for Winter
Zoom Hibernating Animals coloring pages
Edward Willett's Intergalactic Library
What is hibernation?